


Please leave a message after the tone

by Mister_Fox



Category: Bleach, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (Or is it?), Archivist!Ichigo, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Voicemail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:34:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24438262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mister_Fox/pseuds/Mister_Fox
Summary: “You have reached the voicemail of Urahara Kisuke, the Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London branch. If you are hearing this message then I am unable to answer at this time due to work, personal business, or surviving another murder attempt at the hands of the organisation system of this Archive. Please leave a message after the tone.”UraIchi Week 2020 - Day 5, Idiots in Love
Relationships: Kurosaki Ichigo/Urahara Kisuke
Comments: 14
Kudos: 55
Collections: UraIchi Week 2020





	Please leave a message after the tone

“ _You have reached the voicemail of Urahara Kisuke, the Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London branch. If you are hearing this message then I am unable to answer at this time due to work, personal business, or surviving another murder attempt at the hands of the organisation system of this Archive. Please leave a message after the tone.”_

“Good- morning, I guess? My name is Ichigo Kurosaki, former assistant in the research department. I’d like to note that the archive sections you were supposed to be sorting are now an even bigger mess than the previous archivist’s organisation.

“Thanks for that. Have a good day!”

-

“ _You have reached the voicemail of-”_

“Yeah, yeah, I know who you are, and that you’re not answering your phone, because you’re busy, busy, or busy. Anyway, I just wanted to say, thanks for the fact that you at least made audio-recordings of many of the statements, and already uploaded most of them on to the Institute’s intranet. _And that you left the rest on password-locked usbs that wipe their information after three wrong attempts._ ”

-

“ _You have reached the voicemail of-”_

“Why on earth is the storage on my ass about over thirty three loaned research items and artefacts from the vault? There’s no such items in the archive, and the loans were all signed by you- Where the hell did you take this stuff and why _am I paying for it_?”

-

“ _You have reached the voicemail of-”_

“I just spent this week doing audio recordings and finding a new filing system after I finally sorted out your mess. Piles of missing artefacts that are now deemed stolen, a pile of now-useless usb sticks, several computers that exploded after I attempted to access weird sections of them, _a full set of bed items and three months’ worth of food I found stored away in the closed off office_ , and several stacks of fire extinguishers. “I know we have a lot of very flammable paper here, but what am I supposed to do with fifty fire extinguishers? No one needs them in the Institute, and I can’t sell them online! Did you expect a modern-day witch hunt to come to this place and burn the entire place down? “And you couldn’t even be a normal person about them! I keep finding them stashed on the backs of shelves and under loose floor panels and loose ceiling panels and in couches and under couches and behind things and- they’re _e v e r y w h e r e_. At this point I feel like I’m going to come home and find extinguishers stashed there as well. Just- why. _Why._

“Also, someone puked on those carpets that you bought for the room where we take statements. Several someone’s. Way too many people get drunk on Halloween and show up to say utter shit. We got one or two statements that look useful, but… well. There’s no saving your carpets.”

-

“ _You have reached-”_

“Where the hell are you keeping those tapes? There’s a whole bunch of statements that can’t be recorded on the computer. You were here long enough, made enough audio versions- you must have run across them. I can’t believe you haven’t, especially when we couldn’t find audio versions of those ‘sorted’ statements of versions that can’t go on a computer. But those were the _only_ missing audio versions.

“Where did you put them? Why? Did you think they were really true? Did you think someone would try to find them?

”There are- strange things. Things that are happening _now_. Most of the statements are useless, but- I was in research, and- I’ve seen some strange things before. More than strange. I wouldn’t be here if my mother- if I didn’t know there was _something_. If I didn’t know there was more to the world.

“I wish I could ask you- anything. You started working here three years ago. You must have known something. “...Was it something related to the statements, that killed you? Something you learned too slowly, too late?”

-

“ _You-”_

“Fucking _hell_ this has been a long week. Acidwire had shown its face again- Orihime went to follow up on a statement about some dude’s arachnophobia that I was recording, and his weird edition of the collected works of Shakespeare that, for some reason contained a great deal more spiders than it should have.

“I bet that’s a book from that fucker Nezia’s library- I just wish you’d left a warning that there are still more Nezias you keep finding out about from the statements. Those books are ridiculously dangerous, we have to track down and burn every one we hear about, orders from our boss.

“Anyway- there were no spiders in the house, no webs, and definitely no Nezias-

“Just those acid-spitting maggots, and Acidwire staked outside Orihime’s apartment for a _week_ , before it finally left. She’s moved into the archives, now. Guess that panic stash of yours was here for a reason after all- or, well, for reasons other than working so late as to sleep in the Archives.”

-

“ _You-”_

“It’s kinda weird, but I’ve been listening to some of your audio recordings. Your voice sounds a lot better there than on this voicemail, you know? But somehow it sounds less like you. Maybe I’m just used to your voicemail by now, I guess.

“I don’t know why I’m still calling. You’re dead- died of a heart attack, boss told me. A heart attack at twenty-nine is a bit odd, but whatever.

“It’s not like you can really give me advice or help me out. But- “At least you know what the job’s like, right? You know what I’m complaining about.”

-

“ _You-_ ”

"I heard you mention your unnamed police forensic scientist/morgue/mortician contact a couple of times in the follow-up sections appended to the statements you sorted. I've been finding a lot of helpful contacts through there, you know, when you mention their names and more than their occupations.

"He came by, yesterday, had some information about some weird deaths lately. And-

" _Why didn't you mention he's like_ that. I mean, he's an _asshole_. Like, a short, adorable asshole who looks cute when he's angry, but a _completely caustic asshole. How the hell did you get him to cooperate?_

"He did give me some useful information at least, even if he did glare daggers at- everything, really, in the process. Except maybe the archive assistants, and me.

“... ”Also, like. Why didn’t you mention he’s _hot_. Is he why you kept all those fire extinguishers around?”

-

“ _You-_ ”

“Fuck, Acidwire is stalking me and all the interns here. Hey, at least Orihime found out that the fire extinguishers kill those maggots straight off. Guess that’s why you kept so many here, huh? Some weird person she met, _Ulquiorra,_ told her about them. Or, well, showed her.

“Thanks, I guess, for having them all here.”

-

“ _This phone number is no longer in service.”_

“Oh. ...I guess I shouldn’t be surprised the contract would run out.”

_-_

“ _This phone number is no longer in service.”_

-

“ _This phone number-”_

-

“ _This-_

“Acidwire is dead. There was a secret trapdoor in the Archives, and we went to investigate, and the maggots invaded- too early though, so we managed to stay alive, and then the boss flooded the whole building with gas.

“Chad saw- Well. Chad found a body when he tried to flee the institute through the tunnels. Your body. It wasn’t… You were murdered. Shot, three times. Guess Haschwalth lied to me. Didn’t want to scare me off.

“I’ve been in the tunnels, too. I found the _tapes_. I guess you had the same issues recording the _real ones_ on the computer, right?

“You were shot. Not killed by some monster. Shot with a _gun_. By a human.

“Why the hell am I still working here?”

-

“ _This-_

“I don’t know who could have killed you, but obviously it wasn’t any of my friends who were working as archival staff, just a little. Someone from outside the institute, like that vampire hunter… some monster hunter that got confused?

“I’ve been exploring the tunnels. There’s something… wrong with them. And Mizuiro has been acting odd, lately. I don’t know how, but there’s something… wrong. He’s spending a lot more time than usual with his girlfriends, he said - but… I asked, and none of them have seen him in a while.

”Maybe he just got some new ones?”

-

“...”

“Not even a disconnected phone line now, huh. Just nothing.

“I am… listening to your tapes. They’re… pretty interesting.

“I don’t want to say much over a phone line, I guess. Some of that stuff is… well. I don’t know what I shouldn’t know.

“I think… it’s probably time to stop calling. It’s probably dangerous. And it’s not like I even get to hear your voice any more. The tapes are more you than anything else I’ve got now.”

“...I still want to keep calling, though.

“If anyone finds out that I’ve fallen in love with a dead guy, they’ll die laughing.”

“ _Love you too. At five past seven, come alone to the park mentioned in statement 20030704-i. Do not tell anyone where you are going.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Comments feed my soul! They are the fertiliser for new fic.
> 
> Here's a link to [Cywscross' UraIchi Discord Server](https://discordapp.com/invite/ADFnKTZ#_=_)!


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